The Ad Standards Board has banned a controversial Victorian Hearing campaign which described hearing aids as “ugly” along with an image in which the hearing device was replaced with a prawn.

Victorian Hearing apologised for the campaign at the end of last month after people took to the page’s Facebook page to express their anger, with one poster saying: “I don’t really love my hearing aids, but I accept that with the severity of my hearing loss, I’m stuck with them. To see them referred to as ugly though — that’s just really unhelpful.”

The ad, which was running online, on social media and across transport, was removed following the apology.

Complaints against the ad argued it was “utterly offensive” to use the word ugly to describe hearing aids.

“The visual image of a prawn plays into stigmatisation of a group that may have no option to but to wear hearing aids. It is not ok to mock someone’s disability or encourage the general community to perpetuate the myth that hearing aids somehow make you ugly,” a complaint read.

Should Australian courts allow deaf citizens to serve on juries? That’s what a professor at the University of New South Wales is hoping to find out during a mock trial that will take place in Sydney. The topic became a national issue when a Queensland judge ruled a deaf woman could not sit on a jury. You can read about that here. Two of the 15 jurors in the mock trial will be deaf. Read more details about the study in the Guardian here. The deaf started sitting on juries in the U.S. 24 years ago.

NVRC eNews provides news & community announcements on variety of topics related to deaf and hard of hearing people and their families, friends, co-workers, employers, business and government agencies that serve deaf and hard of hearing people. (Includes announcements for Open Caption Movies and Metro Washington, DC community events) eNews-Archives